August 5, 2006

Gatekeeper Moms, Gatekeeper Dads

I think this is so true, except I prefer the term, "emperor-for-life":

A pattern is established in childbirth and breastfeeding that can be hard to break, observes Greg Allen, author of the blog Daddytypes. The mother becomes the expert first, then cringes as she watches her husband awkwardly stumble through his learning curve. As she hears the cries of her fragile infant, she can't help but interrupt.

Actually, a wrinkle in this new, new parent situation is that the opposite is also possible, if far less likely. When we first brought the kid home, I was trying to do be down with EBB, Everything But Breastfeeding, which turned out to be a psychological obstacle to my wife. After just a couple of weeks, she felt it required a concerted effort to learn how to give the kid a bath, for example, because she was worried about screwing up--and also, because it was just easier to have me do it.

I think our tendencies as parents are often to favor our "own way" of doing something at the expense of an equally viable, but different, alternative. And given that mothers are still the default caregiver in our culture, dads are getting the short end of the credibility stick. Also, there's that breast and uterus thing. [Thanks to Po for the ask.]